1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to an apparatus that organizes and controls the sequence of passengers entering an aircraft or an airport security checkpoint.
2. Background of the Invention
The quicker an aircraft unloads its passengers and is cleaned, fueled, and reboarded, the less time an aircraft spends on the ground and the more profitable the airline. Further, when an aircraft spends less time at an airline gate, an airline may schedule more flights from that gate, and gate costs per flight decrease.
Passengers find boarding an aircraft time-consuming because they must wait for the passengers in front of them to store their luggage and take their seats. A passenger wastes additional time when he has to climb over other passengers to get to a middle or window seat or when a sitting passenger must move into the aisle to let him in. Airlines have adopted several boarding strategies to decrease these problems, but, according to several studies, none of these strategies has had an appreciable effect. None solves the most important problem—how to reduce interference between passengers as they stow their luggage and take their seats. This invention helps to solve this problem by organizing the boarding passengers before they enter the aircraft. Plus, it does not require additional airline personnel.
3. Prior Art
A number of individuals have developed procedures and inventions to simplify and shorten the boarding process, but none uses boarding queue control gates and a controller to select passengers for optimal boarding.
Júnior, Silva, Briel, and Villalobos (“Aircraft Boarding Fine Tuning”, XIV International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management, October 2008, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil) state that the boarding process is the most time-consuming of the required tasks while the aircraft is on the ground. They state that passenger boarding requires approximately 60% of the total ground time. They found that two impediments slow this process—seat interference (where a seated passenger blocks another passenger's progress to his assigned seat) and aisle interference (where another passenger in the aisle, perhaps stowing his luggage, blocks a passenger's way to his assigned seat).
Steiner and Philipp (9th Swiss Transport Research Conference, September 2009, Monte Veritá/Ascona, Switzerland) calculate that SWISS International Airlines could save 640,000 Swiss francs (approximately $546,000) per year by reducing aircraft gate time by 5 minutes per flight on 5 flights per day at a single gate in Zurich.
To decrease boarding times at airline gates, some individuals have developed various boarding inventions and techniques. Buschi, Coulomb, Gibault, and Palaysi (US 2006/0206353, 14 Sep. 2006) designed a virtual destination locator to speed boarding passengers to their seats. To speed up the boarding process, Yun Zhao (US 2006/0278764 A1, 14 Dec. 2006) proposed zone boarding by seat location—boarding passengers in window seats first, middle seats next, and aisle seats last.
4. Objects and Advantages
This apparatus consists of a number of queue control gates communicating with a controller. A queue control gate consists of a passenger information scanner and a proceed indicator. The controller monitors and controls the queue control gates and may interface with airline computers and external databases.
Located in the boarding area at the airline gate, the airline arranges the queue control gates so that passengers must pass through them before reaching the boarding gate. The queue control gates select passengers for boarding in a sequence that minimizes boarding difficulties.
Passengers queue up behind the queue control gates, and the controller selects the passengers for boarding based on their passenger information (e.g. seat assignment). The airline may program the controller for various types of aircraft and for any number of different boarding strategies. When selected, a passenger leaves the queue control gate, moves through the boarding gate and into the aircraft. This apparatus ensures that at least the number of passengers equal to the number waiting at the queue control gates do not interfere with each other during the seating process. In this way, the controller arranges the passengers in a sequence that minimizes boarding time.